Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment together with my colleagues and fellow committee chairmen, Mr. Conaway from Texas and Mr. Chaffetz from Utah.

The amendment addresses the Environmental Protection Agency's continuing pattern of obstruction and delay in response to congressional oversight.

Since January 2014, the EPA has proposed or finalized new, far-reaching rules that impact almost every aspect of the American economy. These rules involve major expansions of Federal authority, massive costs to the economy, and are based on secret science that the EPA keeps hidden from external review or scrutiny.

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to perform rigorous oversight of the executive branch. However, as chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, nearly every request for information I make to EPA is greeted with repeated delays, partial responses, or outright refusals to cooperate.

Earlier this year, the committee was forced to issue a subpoena to obtain information related to Administrator Gina McCarthy's deletion of almost 6,000 text messages sent and received on her official Agency mobile device. She claimed that all but one was personal.

Most recently, the committee requested information and documents related to the EPA's development of the waters of the U.S. rule and the Agency's inappropriate lobbying of and collaboration with outside organizations to generate grassroots support.

The EPA again failed to provide the requested documents. The committee was forced to notice its intention to issue a subpoena.

However, producing documents in bits and pieces after months or years of delay are not the actions of an open and transparent administration. They are the actions of an Agency and administration that has something to hide.

It is clear that the EPA does not see its job as facilitating transparency and oversight. It seems to believe its mission is to delay, obstruct, and otherwise attempt to stonewall any attempt by Congress to fulfill its constitutional oversight obligation on behalf of the American people.

Congress should not support such an agency. We are taking further action with this amendment to reduce funding for EPA's offices. The EPA must refocus its efforts on transparency and cooperation with Congress and the American people. At that point, we could consider restoring their funding.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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